i think i'm missing something about DE's

[chucky chuckaluck]

i've used kde3,4, gnome and xfce. other than having built in ways to manage wallpapers and fonts and so forth, is there an essential function to them that goes beyond managing the surface of the desktop?

[myusername]

not really if you get around the program dependancies

[MaxIBoy]

A desktop environment will be able to work with any window manager, often has a panel application, and desktop icons. And that's it.

[chucky chuckaluck]

so, is it really just a matter of style in how you like doing things? i use openbox, have a pick of panels, i use thunar and feh for my wallpaper, gtk-chtheme, etc., etc. but, one time, my cousin and i were trying to figure out whether we should get a case, or just a 12-pack. finally, he said "anything worth doing is worth overdoing" and we went ahead with the case. so, i can see the other end of the spectrum where you want to have a kind of elaborate mission control thing going on. is that really all there is to it? seems like there should be more.

[init1]

so, is it really just a matter of style in how you like doing things? i use openbox, have a pick of panels, i use thunar and feh for my wallpaper, gtk-chtheme, etc., etc. but, one time, my cousin and i were trying to figure out whether we should get a case, or just a 12-pack. finally, he said "anything worth doing is worth overdoing" and we went ahead with the case. so, i can see the other end of the spectrum where you want to have a kind of elaborate mission control thing going on. is that really all there is to it? seems like there should be more.
Yeah, but DE's are for those who don't want to set up all those things manually.

[billgoldberg]

i've used kde3,4, gnome and xfce. other than having built in ways to manage wallpapers and fonts and so forth, is there an essential function to them that goes beyond managing the surface of the desktop?

Well, they have the whole software thing going on.

Gnome comes with a text editor, browser, audio and video player, ...

I think the point off an DE is that you can just use it without the need for any other software.

[SomeGuyDude]

Simple, full-featured. Grab and go. Plus for those of us Compiz junkies, a WM alone won't do.

[SunnyRabbiera]

DE's provide what people need mostly...
Though KDE4 I cant see the other side to, with it still too new and it with not that many good apps to it (I have no idea how Kubuntu Ibex is going to do without a decent CD burner with K3B gone).

[toupeiro]

Please consider some hard learned advice from me on this. :)

Make the look and feel of any DE standardization as plain and loose as you can, unless you are going for some sort of public facing keyosk style DE, and standardize on menu's Icons, and things like environment variables like PATH and maybe LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

If you start to get too creative on window focus behavior, window decorations, and accessibility options like wallpaper and whatnot, it can really be counteractive to the whole purpose of a DE.

I may do things like, enforce a password on their screensaver, and default it to ten minutes per session, but I will not restrict them to extend or shrink it in that session.

[chucky chuckaluck]

ok, so the idea of a DE being 'ready made' makes sense. unless i want to mess with something, i just want everything i want working without me having to do anything.

i've tried kde 4 in a variety of settings (live cds, kdemod, etc) and i've found it to be either not ready, or just a giant pain in the asterisks. maybe i'm doing something wrong.

[Trail]

Though KDE4 I cant see the other side to, with it still too new and it with not that many good apps to it (I have no idea how Kubuntu Ibex is going to do without a decent CD burner with K3B gone).

Take a look.

[miggols99]

DE's provide what people need mostly...
Though KDE4 I cant see the other side to, with it still too new and it with not that many good apps to it (I have no idea how Kubuntu Ibex is going to do without a decent CD burner with K3B gone).
Actually a KDE 4 version is in development. I tried it before and it crashed a lot...but that was a while ago. I wonder how it is now?

Powerdevil, the KPowersave replacement will be in KDE 4.2...but that's in January.